Norwegian Wood
by Coriander Tea
Summary: Relationships can't be that difficult, and the virginity thing is getting embarrasing.  Also, a significant other will distract Moriarty.  Sherlock acquires a girlfriend as an experiment.  She doesn't know he's just pretending.  He doesn't know he's not.
1. Meeting Cute

A/N: For those who have been reading Empowerment, I have learned a lesson. Never, never, never ever say 'This fic is practically writing itself' because it's a guarantee that things will dry up immediately. So, on the grounds that writing something is better than nothing, here is this. My many, many thanks to Cloud Green and Chalcedony Rivers, who helped immeasurably in hammering it into shape.

Obligatory disclaimer: While Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John H. Watson are out of copyright and fair game, the modern setting and distinctive portrayal by the BBC probably isn't. I don't own them and am not getting paid for this.

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><p>'I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me'— 'Norwegian Wood', Lennon-McCartney.<p>

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><p>7th January—John H. Watson's Blog:<p>

This morning, Sherlock has a small cut on his forehead at the hairline, a broken window in his bedroom (from the inside out—there was glass all over the floor), a mild hangover, and a small sphere of some stone called labradorite that he keeps turning over and over in his hand.

All this, he says, happened because he had a birthday yesterday, went out to buy a new scarf, met a girl, and went on a spur-of-the-moment _date_ with her. I am not sure whether to call this a date or a crime spree, because apparently she is responsible (indirectly) for the cut on his head, and for the broken window (directly). She is also an expert shoplifter, said she would pay a restaurant bill and then didn't, forcing both of them to run for it, then defaced a wall of the National Gallery before wandering back here where she hurled a bit of brick through the window because her _ex_ dumped her a year before. And punched Sherlock in the stomach before running off without giving him any contact information.

Personally I think that'd be for the best because she sounds mentally ill, but Sherlock being Sherlock, that's probably the attraction.

This demands a more detailed explanation.

"Why didn't you tell anyone it was your birthday?" I asked. "I'd have bought you a pint."

"I didn't want anyone making a fuss over me," he mumbled.

"Rubbish," was my reply. "If there is anything you live for, it is people making a fuss over you. What did you need a new scarf for, anyhow?"

"Because the old one smelled like feet."

"That's because you threw it down anywhere and then your dirty socks fell on it and you left things like that. I am not your housekeeper!" Mrs. Hudson had come with coffee and aspirin for the sufferer.

"Aspirin?" he whined. "I need a _real_ painkiller. John, you're a doctor—."

"No." I told him.

"But I'm in _pain_."

"Definitely not." I know better.

"Mrs. Hudson?" he appealed to her.

"Fraid not, love." He slumped slowly into the depths of the couch and groaned.

"I might consider getting you something stronger—," I began, and left it there for a moment.

"There is a huge 'if' implied there, John." He lifted his head and glared at me.

"—If you were to be forthcoming with more about last night. Story first. Then medication."

"Story?" Mrs. Hudson asked.

"He met a girl," I explained. "Please sit down, Mrs. H. I know you won't want to miss a word of this."

"It all began in front of Harrods'," he said. "I bought a scarf I liked, left the store, crossed the street and was walking along when I noticed that someone on the other side of the street was imitating the way I walk. Perfectly, except that she had to make a little skip every few steps to keep up. So I started making little skips, too, and—."

Mrs. Hudson interrupted. "That was the girl you met? Is she pretty?"

Sherlock glared at her. "Yes, that was the girl. Pretty? The space between her upper lip and her nose was too short, her cheekbones were too high and round for the rest of her face, and her chin was too prominent. Other than that, she was attractive enough."

"All of which you proceeded to tell her, and then she punched you in the stomach." I predicted.

"Who precisely is telling this story? You or me? No, the punch was much later. As I was saying, I skipped, she skipped—."

"You do realize that you are the only human male alive over the age of eight not only willing to skip on a public street, but to _admit_ he skipped on a public street?" I asked.

Sherlock opened his mouth, then closed it firmly, crossed his arms and stared up at the ceiling.

"Do go on, dear," Mrs. Hudson urged.

"Only with the understanding that with the next interruption, I will stop and never again continue. I might add that I plan to see her again."

"Where?" I quipped. "In the dock for theft?"

That earned me a glare. "Do you want to hear this or not?"

"I want to hear it," Mrs. Hudson said. "Go on, dear.

"Very well. I jumped backward, she did the same, and after a little more of this hilarity, I walked into a sign. On purpose, might I add. That was how I got this cut on my head. Why walk into a sign?, I can see you're longing to ask. Because one of us had to cross the street if we were going to talk. A moment later, she was dabbing at my forehead with a tissue and apologizing for all she was worth. I seized the opportunity to look into her purse-she had it open to get the tissue out-and everything was new. Brand new. Purse, lipstick, coat, shoes and dress-which still had an anti-theft device attached to the hem. No mobile phone, and when was the last time you saw a girl in this day and age who wasn't practically grafted to hers?"

He paused and looked at us. Having been cautioned not to speak, we both stayed mum.

"You are allowed to talk when I'm obviously waiting for a response," he said eventually, "Just not while I'm speaking."

"Oh, thank you so much for giving us permission," I replied.

"Was it a very posh frock?" Mrs. Hudson deflected the topic.

"In an understated way," Sherlock said. "Of course I deduced all sorts of other things as well. Japanese but fully bilingual, spent considerable time in both the UK and the US while quite young, university graduate, estranged from her family, unemployed, donated a kidney more than a year ago but less than seven years—."

"Japanese?"I seized on that. "I would have thought you would have mentioned that before."

"Why?" he asked in that blank way he sometimes has. "Is that more relevant than anything else about her?"

"Well, no, I suppose not—but hold on, what proof do you have that you aren't making all this up?" A chance encounter with a mysterious Asian girl sounded more like the stuff of fantasy.

"Proof? How about this? I took it in the National Gallery." He reached for his phone, pulled up a picture, and handed it back. On the screen was a picture of a young woman (yes, Asian,) wearing a black wool coat over an emerald green dress. Her hair was cut just below her chin in a style Mrs. Hudson tells me is called a 'pageboy', her fringe trimmed diagonally on her forehead in wisps. She was smiling as she stood next to a very rough cartoon of Sherlock's face drawn directly on the wall. She did have all the flaws Sherlock had mentioned, but he does tend to nit-pick and faces are more than just features. Not a perfect '10', in other words, but nice-looking all the same.

"Is that drawing done in icing?" I asked. Chocolate and raspberry from the look of it.

"She had a couple of cupcakes in a bakery box. We ate them and then she fingerpainted on the wall with the excess."

"May I have a look?" Mrs. Hudson asked, and I handed the phone off to her. "Oh, hasn't she got a lovely smile? Are you sure she nicked her clothes? She hardly looks the sort who would."

"Everything new, soles of her shoes not even scuffed, the anti-theft tag still on one piece, no shopping bags—she could hardly have entered the store naked, so what did she do with her own clothes?—hair not chemically processed, neatly kept nails but no manicure, not wealthy—and the coat alone must have cost eighteen hundred pounds. Designer name. With the dress, the shoes, and the extras—three thousand pounds, at least. No receipts in her handbag. Moreover, when I told her about it, she immediately pried the tag off with a nail file and no fooling about with it."

"But shops do sometimes miss a tag," Mrs. Hudson pointed out, "and then you have to go all the way back for them to remove it. I can think of lots of reasons why she might have worn a new outfit straight out of the store without bringing away her old things or stealing anything. She might have spilled something all over herself, or if she only just arrived here, the airline might have lost her luggage."

"There could have been a fire in her flat," I contributed, "or maybe you got it wrong about her being unemployed, and she works there. She could have left her old things in her locker. Or won the money on a scratch card."

"Employees must get a discount," Mrs. Hudson agreed. "She might have bought so much they're delivering the rest, and her old things could be in with it. I know you're a brilliant detective, dear, but lots of people read John's blog these days, and I don't think it would be very nice for her if it got about and people start calling her the girl who pinches things, or watching her like a hawk every time she shops."

"Not to mention that she'll likely break your nose for you when she sees you next," I added. "After all, she punched you in the stomach this time around."

"Very well," he conceded. "I have no actual proof she shoplifted anything, one is innocent until proven guilty, and it is possible, if improbable, that there is a totally innocent and boring explanation behind her behavior. May I continue?"

"Of course," I spread my hands. "On with it."

"'I'm so sorry,' she said, blotting my cut. 'Are you all right?' Her pronunciation was very good and she had almost conquered the 'L', which of course does not exist in the Japanese language, but it was her tendency to put a soft vowel on the end of every syllable that ended with a consonant—Yes, John?"

"I know that both Mrs. Hudson and I appreciate your breadth of knowledge, but too much attention to the fine details ruins the forward momentum of a story," I said as tactfully as I could.

"Very well," His lips moved for a moment as he edited mentally. "I replied, 'Yes, but what was all that about?'

'I saw you in the store and I thought you were cute, so I stalked you,' she said, smiling, and impishly at that. I ran back the reel in my mind and realized she had been in the periphery of my vision.

'Well, I did not walk into a sign because I thought you were cute.' I told her.

She cut in. 'That is good. Nothing annoys me more than having men think I am cute. However, I do think I am cute, so I am offended.'

She said it in fun, so I replied, 'You misconstrue me, but since you brought it up, the space between your upper lip and your nose is too short.'

'Your eyes are too deep set,' she replied, 'It looks as though someone did this,' making a 'V' with her fingers and poking them first toward her eyes and then at mine, 'and they stuck that way.'

'At least my cheeks don't look as though I was gathering nuts for the winter,' I shot back.

'And when you make this face,' she continued without missing a beat, screwing up her mouth in disgust and poking out her chin, 'you look like one of those puppets on "Spitting Image".'

'I do not!' I replied.

'Yes, you do,' she said, pointing to a mirror in a shop window. 'You are doing it right now.'

'_My_ chin doesn't resemble the handle on a frying pan, anyway,' I riposted.

'And I'm not pale like a steamed bun or a fish's belly,' she countered.

'I beg your pardon, but that is a case of the polar bear calling the iceberg white. There is hardly a shade to choose from between your skin tone and mine,' I put my wrist next to hers to compare.

'Yes, but in a woman pale skin is an accepted sign that she is delicate and feminine. In a man it's a sign that he doesn't get any fresh air and has unsavory personal habits.' There was nothing to do at that point but laugh, so we did.

'You win,' I said. 'My name is Sherlock.'

'I am Aiko,' she said. 'And even though all of what I said is true, I would still stalk you down the street.'

'And I would still walk into a sign to get you to cross it. By the way, I know what you did,' I leaned closer to tell her the last part.

She turned even paler. 'What—?'

'You missed that tag.' I pointed it out to her. 'Don't worry. You got out the door without being caught, and I like you too much to turn you in now.'

'Oh, how annoying. Would you please hold this for me?' She handed me the bakery box I mentioned earlier before getting out a nail file and popping the tag off her skirt.

'Certainly. Also, happy birthday.' Not only did the cupcakes, visible through the cellophane top, have 'Happy Birthday' on them, I saw the date on her registry card when her purse was open.'" Sherlock had forgotten he was supposed to be hung over and was looking much livelier.

"All right, hold it a moment!" I made a 'back up' gesture. "I might be willing to buy that weird flirting-fighting business as some kind of twisted courtship ritual, but you _can't_ make me believe it was not only your birthday yesterday, but hers too. It just doesn't happen in real life."

"Why not? Haven't you ever heard of the Birthday Paradox? Barring twins and leap year babies, the odds of any two people sharing a birthday are one in three hundred and sixty five, but put any twenty-three people together at random and the odds are fifty-fifty that two of them will share a birthday. Fifty-seven people, and it's almost a dead cert two of them will. There were a lot more than fifty-seven people walking along Brompton Road at that time of day." He leapt up and began explaining the maths involved.

"Fancy another cuppa, John?" Mrs. Hudson asked me quietly. "I think I've time to get it while he talks this bit out."

"Thank you, yes. Whenever he starts going on like this, I just think of all the different words I know that mean 'eviscerate'."

Eventually Sherlock got back on track with his tale. "'How do you know these are not for someone else?' she asked.

'Two reasons. First, if they were, you'd be on your way to that someone, not standing here flirting with me. Second, I caught a glimpse of your ID when your purse was open. You are celebrating alone, or were. You see, it's also my birthday,' I produced my wallet and proved it. 'Since it's absurd that two reasonably attractive people should be spending their birthdays alone, would you like to have dinner with me?'"

"What, just like that?" Mrs. Hudson asked.

"Yes. Just so," Sherlock shrugged.

"Don't stop there. She accepted, of course…" Mrs. H. was on the edge of her seat, but I was not so sure. Something about this was still smoky to me.

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><p>An idea: one John would not approve of, but he would never know. It was an idea that would only occur to a sociopath. How to remove those he cared about, even if only intellectually, from harm's way, from being targets? Put another, one who was expendable, one he didn't care about, in their place. Who would be closer than a friend, a flatmate, a landlady? A girlfriend.<p>

Molly? No. She'd be overjoyed, but he has a slight fondness for Molly, as one might have for a wiggly, over-affectionate puppy. Besides, Molly was useful when it comes to cadavers, and her replacement might not be as accommodating. Some other girl, then. It should be easy enough to find one, the world was swarming with them. Practically any one would do, although no one with a child—or anyone too young. Or—then a flash of green across the street caught his eye. A girl dressed in green.

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><p>AN:I am not sure who or how, but some Sherlockian in the past worked out that January 6th was Holmes' birthday, so I am using that. The Birthday Paradox is statistically accurate and one of the great mathematical mysteries. I shared a birthday with a girl named Colleen Gallagher in elementary school, so I can vouch for that part of it.

Yes, I know it starts off cutely, rom-com like, but things will get darker. How could they not?


	2. Dinner

The thing to do was to step outside of himself, to view it as an act. He was playing the part of a man who was genuinely interested in meeting someone with the possibility of it developing into a relationship, a man who would be flattered and intrigued by an attractive stranger's interest in him.

After all, relationships couldn't be that difficult—people got into and out of them all the time. Look at John and his rotating cast of girlfriends, for one, and then there was Anderson, who was not only married but having it off with Donovan on the side. What were the chances that not only one woman but two would voluntarily afflict themselves with _that _idiot?

People met, dated, and mated (if only temporarily) all the time. Um, yes. Sex. That was the messy aspect of the whole business, involving physical contact and bodily fluids, all to achieve something that could be much more easily and efficiently taken care of on one's own. Well, it was probably time to get the whole virginity thing over and done with, it had become embarrassing. Here was a girl, attractive enough that no one would question why he would be taken with her, and already interested in him. That would save time. Yes. This one would do, at least for practice. And so he walked into a sign on purpose.

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><p>John is expanding his blogs into a book, and having reached the point where I enter the picture, has asked me for my perspective. He says, "The main reason Sherlock doesn't care whether the earth goes around the sun or the sun around the earth is that as far as he's concerned, they both go around him."<p>

To that I replied, "But everybody deep down secretly believes they themselves are the center of the universe. He just doesn't bother pretending he doesn't."

"He needs reminding sometimes that it does not, in fact, revolve around him," John said back, "especially considering what comes of it."

I agree, and so—where to begin?

My name is Aiko, that is, my personal name. It can mean any number of things depending on how one writes it, two of which are 'love child' or 'indigo girl', but I am given to understand that both of those have connotations in English I would rather avoid, the first being born out of wedlock, which I was not, and the second being a flannel-shirt wearing lesbian folk-rock musician. The way I write it now in Kanji, it means 'love-treasure'. Mr. Miike would prefer I not use my family name, and so I will adopt that of Murasaki, after Lady Murasaki, who wrote The Tale of Genji, and John promises to uphold my assumed name.

Therefore, call me Aiko Murasaki, personal name first in the Western fashion. I apologize in advance for any unevenness; I learned English in London and New York and Washington, and it is not my first language. I lack John's concise and polished prose style. I hope you will bear with me all the same.

I met Sherlock Holmes on my twenty-fifth birthday, which was also his birthday, only he was thirty-five. I saw him when I was shopping in Harrods (the less said about any alleged shoplifting, the better) and yes, I thought he was good-looking, but it was more than that.

He had such a_ busy_, intriguing face, with eyes that continually flicked around, seeing _everything_, that I was moved to follow him out of the store and down the street. Once I crossed it and we began talking, well, one thing led to another and he asked me to dinner.

I considered for a moment. "Yes, but only if I pay my share," I told him, falling into step beside him. "Incidentally, I am not in the habit of stalking strange men, however cute. I heard you speak to a salesclerk and you have a voice that sounds the way very good coffee smells. I wanted to hear you speak again and for once the coffee tastes as good as it smells."

His face split in a delighted but surprised smile. "I'm not sure what you mean by that, but it sounds like a compliment. Nor am I in the habit of asking strange girls out to dinner. Only the ones who stalk me and insult me."

"Then it must happen to you a lot, given your way with an insult." I smiled back. "Now, where are we going to eat? I'm hungry for noodles; Obaachan, that is, my grandmother, always made us long noodles on our birthdays so we would have long lives and while I am not superstitious, my stomach is nostalgic. Also, I like pesto but if you don't that is all right."

"Italian it is, then."

The first place had no tables but the second one did, and we didn't say anything to each other that was at all memorable until after we had looked at the menus and ordered. It was the sort of restaurant with white linen tablecloths rather than red and white checked ones, which does not necessarily mean that it has better food.

So as we were waiting, he put his elbows on the table, steepled his fingers and regarded me. "Rather than talking about ourselves, what if we were to talk about each other, try to see what we can figure out about the other? Ladies first."

"All right. You...," I looked at him. "Are not married and have never been, which I can tell from how you dress and your hair. No one has ever told you what would suit you best or gone clothes shopping with you since you were a boy. That is not to say you are dressed wrongly, for your coat suits you very well.

"You don't have a conventional job; you have too much personality and are not nearly downtrodden enough. I cannot imagine you are accustomed to either taking or giving orders…. Whatever you do, it is something where you get to be the—star turn? Is that the right phrase? You _might_ be a chef, because your hands are scarred and burned in places, which happens to chefs, but you have no food smells lingering on you. Cooking smells cling. I cannot account for your hands, but perhaps you are a teacher in a progressive school, or else a critic, because you are very precise about details and like to be right. Whatever you do, it is something where you get to share what you know."

He had put his hands down on the table and was looking at me incisively. His eyes were exactly the shade of beni-midori achieved by double-layered dyeing of safflower over cerulean. "That is not bad at all, actually. I'm a detective. A consulting detective, the only one in the world."

"I don't know what that is. Are you with the police, or do you do background checks and divorce cases?" I asked. The waiter had brought us a basket of rosemary-scented bread. I tore off a chunk and nibbled at it.

"Neither. The police consult me when they're at a loss, which is always, and I never charge any fee for my assistance. The reward, for me, comes in the work itself. Private citizens consult me as well, for a fee, but I don't do divorces or anything that dull and conventional. If a case doesn't challenge me, frankly, I can't be bothered."

"Can you talk about cases, or are they confidential?"

"I have a friend, my flatmate in fact, who writes some of them up, overly dramatizing them along the way while leaving out my deductions, which are the only truly interesting parts. He posts them on his blog, so any confidentiality went missing long ago. I object for form's sake, but whatever his posts lack in strict accuracy and attention to detail, they make up for as an effective media tool. They are what bring in the clients… Let tell you about the first case he and I ever worked together.

"Several months ago, there were four mysterious deaths around London. All four died by ingesting poison, the same poison in the same form, and all four occurred in places where the victims had no business being—isolated, vacant or abandoned spots. It looked like suicide, but it was, in fact, murder. Two were male, one middle aged, the other eighteen, and two women, one a politician and the other in media. They had never met, there was no connection among them other than that all four had disappeared from busy streets, well-lit, public areas. None of them had histories of depression or mental illness. They didn't belong to the same religion or to any cults."

"May I ask if anyone checked if they visited the same websites?" I asked when he paused for breath.

"Not until I did, but you get a gold star for that question. However, beyond the most common shopping and media sites, no, " he replied.

"Then you said they died in places they had no business being. In large cities, people usually only know a few areas very well, the places where they live and work. In unfamiliar zones they might as well be tourists. Were the places they died within their familiar zones?"

He smiled. "Another good question. Only the boy—he had been in that gymnasium once before. The others were off their beaten tracks."

"I am enjoying this very much," I said, sitting back so the waiter could put down my salad plate. "In large cities, there are three ways of getting around—walking, driving or biking, which is to say, private transportation, and public transport. Or some combination of those. It is not likely that they walked to places they didn't know in order to kill themselves."

"They did not walk, or not very far."

"Were the places they died close to public transport? Wait a moment, this one has Dijon vinaigrette. I think that was yours."

"Oh, right." He swapped plates with me. "No, they didn't get there by the underground or by bus. You're getting very close to the answer, by the way."

"Only because you did all the heavy lifting. In Tokyo, there are a lot of people who are what we call 'paper drivers'. That is, they learned well enough to take and pass a driving test when they were young, but they can't afford a car of their own, so they go years without getting behind the wheel. I imagine it must be the same way here?" I picked up a fork.

"Yes. Unlike in America, cities here aren't designed for automobiles. None of them drove themselves to the places where they died in their own cars."

I took a bite of salad. "So someone else drove them, and the first rule of urban safety is: Never get into a car with a stranger. Not even if they point a gun at you, because if they are willing to kill you for not getting into a car, they will do much worse to you once they have you in it and can take you anywhere. It is better to run, for hitting a moving target is not nearly as easy as it looks on television. But there is one exception to that, and that is, if the stranger is a taxi driver."

His mouth opened, but he paused without speaking, Then he reached into his shopping bag, which was on a spare chair with my cupcakes, and peeled a gold sticker off his purchase. Leaning over, he pressed it on the lapel of my coat. "Heavy lifting or not, you have surpassed the entire metropolitan police force and deserve a reward. It _was_ the taxi driver. What pointed you there?"

I took a deep breath. "We spent months at a time in foreign cities—New York, Washington, here in London, but my mother is never entirely at ease being among so many people who are not Japanese. Her unease extended to my safety. Usually Obaachan traveled with us and went along with me wherever I went, but the year that my great-aunt was terminally ill, she stayed behind.

"Consequently, one day I went out alone in New York, and I took a taxi. When I got back—I was sixteen at the time—Mother was…very upset, for over a quarter of an hour. She said that in America they let anyone with a license drive a taxi, and most of them were the lowest sort of criminal. Going around in taxis by myself was asking to be driven off somewhere and assaulted. I had no right to risk being raped and murdered like that. The people in the next suite called down to management to complain about the noise. I have never been entirely at ease when taking a taxi ever since."

"I would have thought you would go directly to the source and never been entirely at ease around your mother ever since." Sherlock commented.

"Mother was under a great deal of strain. I don't feel comfortable going into detail about it, but she relied on me to be the one she didn't have to worry about. So, tell me about the taxi driver."

He did, going into detail about who the man had been and how he had tricked four people into taking a deadly poison at what they supposed to be gunpoint, and how the driver had enticed Sherlock himself into a deadly battle of wits. Two bottles of pills, one safe, the other poisoned. They were to take the pills at the same time once he chose his.

While he explained, we finished the salad and the entrée arrived. I did get my noodles, linguini with butternut squash and kale in pesto sauce, and it was very good.

"You may complain of your friend's penchant for drama, but you have a flair for it yourself," I said. "So you chose, but which one did you choose?"

"It did not matter, for I never took it. As I was about to, someone shot the driver." I noted that he did not say who.

"Oh!" I exclaimed. "But you must have had it analyzed afterward. Who would not want to know if they had chosen correctly?"

"Let me turn that around again, and ask you what you think happened," He watched me as I sipped at my wine.

"Let me go over what you told me of him again. A dying man who was prepared to kill strangers to provide for his daughters, highly intelligent—but only a taxi driver. He accomplished nothing more in his life than that.

"Such a person would bear a deep-rooted grudge, a belief that he had never gotten his due. Grudge is not an intense enough word for what his feelings would be. A person like that would not offer a truly fair chance, for all that he swore otherwise. In his mind, it would be only right to cheat, as he had been cheated all his life. So both bottles would be poison, but he would either have built up an immunity to it or else use some sleight-of-hand trick to make it seem as though he took it when he did not." I tore off a bit of bread, rolled it up into a pill and demonstrated how it could be hidden between the fingers.

"Nicely reasoned. I wish I had another sticker to give you. Unfortunately, I dropped the pill I chose. It was never recovered at the scene and therefore was never analyzed. The pill that would have been his was poisoned. You may be right, but it can never be known."

"That is unlucky. But—is anyone watching over that man's daughters?" I asked.

"Not as far as I know. Why?"

"Because his mysterious sponsor, the man who was to pay him for these deaths—someone who does something so evil and cruel is not a trustworthy person, no matter if he has a reputation for keeping his word. In fact, it would be a game to him to phrase his word so he could honor it to the very letter while breaking it in spirit. If, for example, he told the taxi man, 'Your daughters will have more money than they will ever need'—dead people need no money."

"You raise an interesting point. However, now it's my turn to tell you about you," He smiled, reached across the table to take my right hand, running his forefinger over my thumbnail. "You grew up in a rather traditional household with an extended family, even if it was only part of the time, and you were reasonably happy. That I get from how you speak of your grandmother with affection and even though you have issues with your mother, you defend her and try to understand her. Also from your hair—not colored or permed—and how you dress, but more on_ that_ later.

"Obviously you're intelligent and well educated, although your travels influenced you more than your mother might like. You went to university, but what did you study? Not English, it would be too easy. You were correct about how hands tell a lot about a person. The scars and burns you mention come from my experiments. It's not enough for me to look something up—who knows where the writer came by their knowledge or what bias influenced their findings? Yours say a great deal about you.

"You keep your nails short and well-tended, without varnish. That means you use your hands, but for what? This right thumbnail has a tiny notch at the apex, with a corresponding convex curve into the quick. That comes from sewing by hand. But could it have happened by sitting down and doing all your mending for a year in one go? The callus here at the very tip says no. You pumice it so it doesn't snag, but it's still there. So you sew a lot by hand and you sew often, working with very fine and delicate fabrics.

"No one these days has to sew by hand for a bare living, not in a first world country. There are plenty of sewing machines and embroidery machines for that. This is work done for art, not for subsistence. You might have studied costume design or fashion, but that's where your clothes come in. Costume and fashion students dress the part, from the deliberately arty to the bizarre. You, on the other hand, are wearing clothes that call attention to you rather than to themselves, classic and simple, flattering colors. A traditionalist. Your work is not meant to be worn, not in the course of daily life."

"You are right," I exclaimed. "I studied textile arts at Tokyo University of the Arts. My grandmother was declared a Living National Treasure for her mastery of Kyoto-style embroidery. Her most famous work was a series of kimono based on The Tale of Genji, one illustrating each chapter, fifty-four in all. She was my first teacher. I would have scars and stains to match yours from working with dyes and mordents, except that I wear gloves when I do. What else can you tell?"

"This is where I may get too personal for your liking. Something happened to you in the last year, something devastating but not, I think, traumatic, not violent. Not a broken heart, either, but something bad enough that you left home and are here in London, alone, having dinner with a stranger on your birthday. You don't even have your mobile with you; is it that you don't want to speak to anyone, or that the silence is too much to bear? Whatever it is, it is bound up in your family. Either a divorce or a death. Your parents' divorce, not your own of course."

He still held my fingertips, stroking them gently, and his voice was gentle and sympathetic too. "But more likely it is a death. Not your grandmother, for the death of an elder, as sorrowful as it may be, is predictable, natural, to be expected. Again, it goes back to how you spoke of her. She's been dead for several years, I suspect.

"This wound is new and raw. You mentioned that your mother counted on you to be the one she didn't have to worry about. That implies you had a sibling or siblings she had to worry about. It _was_ a sibling, wasn't it?"

"Yes," My hand jerked a little, reflexively, but I let it stay in his. "...You are truly the most perceptive person I have ever met. I had an older brother. I had two older brothers, in truth, but the eldest died as an infant. He was born prematurely, and a nurse neglected to turn on the incubator. A simple, stupid error.

"My other brother, Isojiro, had cancer-had several cancers, over the years. He had a defective gene, they said, that made him unusually susceptible. That was why we traveled so much, going from clinic to hospital, country to country, for his treatment. My mother is not a person who gives up. Our lives were structured around his care. With his passing-we no longer know how to relate to each other, or even to ourselves. Living peaceably together under the same roof was no longer possible, and I had some money from my grandmother, so that is how and why I am here. I had good memories of England, and I also had a visa from before that allows for long-term stay."

"So you are the only remaining child in your family?" he asked.

"Yes. I was the only girl and the only healthy one." I replied.

"Then I think your mother will forgive you for still being alive," he said, very softly and, it seemed to me, gently and with true sympathy.

That was—that moment—I had never felt so _naked_. I had never felt so_ known_. It was profound and moving and…ultimately proved to be utterly false.

I was, you see, thoroughly charmed by him, by his expressive face, his beautiful voice, by how he held my hand and looked into my eyes, by the close attention he gave me. But I was much more trusting then. I did not know what he was, or that sociopaths can be so charismatic and manipulative because they don't care about anything except what they want.

TBC…

* * *

><p>AN: So this chapter was a very long time in coming. We had a winter storm in our area and lost power twice one night. When the power came back, despite being plugged into a surge protector, the motherboard on my computer fried. So I lost the work I had not yet moved into the Document Manager and had to get a new computer.

Many,_ many_ thanks to Chalcedony Rivers, who sorted things out and made them make sense.


	3. Venus

"Oh, poor girl," Mrs. Hudson exclaimed on hearing about Aiko's fragile, doomed brother. "That poor family, I should say. No wonder her mother's a bit high-strung, what with looking after a dying son for so long. Where was their father in all this?"

"Working," Sherlock replied. "Hers was a traditional family."

"There as well as here, eh? Still, that's no life for a young girl, being dragged round from hospital to hospital when she wasn't even the one sick."

"It _was_ isolating and made for an uneven education, I gathered," Sherlock said, "but it couldn't be helped."

"Why not?" I asked. "Unless—oh, you said she'd donated a kidney. It must have been the brother who needed it."

"Bone marrow too," he nodded. "She was a perfect tissue match."

"All that and he died anyway," Mrs. Hudson marveled, shaking her head. "It's tragic."

As implausible as I had found his story at the start, I was starting to warm to it and to the idea of Aiko. Although not as swift intellectually as Sherlock (but then who is, other than his brother?) she clearly was intelligent and if half of what she told him about her life was true, then she would hardly know what normal was. A person who would go through two painful tissue donations to try and keep a sibling alive while living with a desperate, half-mad mother was a person who might be able to cope with a manic-depressive deductive genius with sociopathic tendencies and a substance abuse problem. But then there was still a lot of the story he hadn't yet explained.

I asked. "So then what?"

"We had finished by then and refused dessert and coffee, so the waiter brought us the bill. I reached for it, of course, but Aiko got there first. 'I'll get it," she said. 'Go ahead, I'll settle this and catch up.' This is the age of equality, after all, so I put on my coat and went out to the sidewalk. The next thing I know, she tore past me yelling, 'Run!' with the waiter in hot pursuit calling out 'Stop!' So I ran."

"What? Just like that?" I couldn't suppress a grin. "You could have stopped and paid him."

"Yes, just like that. I was caught off guard and it was a matter of the fight-or-flight response. I followed her. Don't worry, I shall go around later and pay it…She has a decent turn of speed on her, too. You would have thought she was wearing trainers instead of heels."

"Perhaps she has plenty of experience in running from the law," I commented.

"Perhaps. I caught up with her at the corner, and we ducked into the tube station and onto the train. The waiter wasn't prepared to follow us that far. Once we got our breath back, I asked her what she wanted to do next, and she said, 'I would like to see Velazquez's _Reclining Venus_.' So we went to the National Gallery."

* * *

><p>Some works of art were so great that they silenced even Sherlock, at least momentarily, and Velazquez's magnificent<em> Venus<em> was one of them. He had depicted the goddess lying with her back to the viewer at full length on a bed mussed as from a night of ardent love, naked and beautiful. An attendant cherub held a mirror so she could see herself, but her reflection was blurred.

"You do realize that from an anatomical point of view, this is rubbish, don't you?" he asked Aiko. "And the angle of the mirror is wrong."

"Hush," she said serenely. "Venus is a goddess, and does not have to conform to mortal anatomy. The angle of the mirror is meant to protect us from the danger of looking at her tremendous beauty unprotected, because looking on her face directly would be like gazing into the sun. This is the fourth time I have had the privilege of seeing her in person.

"There is no such tradition of the nude in fine art in Japan. Yes, I know that woodcut prints often showed much more explicit things, but they were never considered fine art and they hardly show the body, let alone glorify it. The clothes are more important, except for the relevant parts."

"Why is that?" he asked. "I mean, why are the clothes more important?"

"Because everyone has a body, but not everyone can afford splendid clothes."

Sherlock was enjoying himself a great deal on two levels at the same time. The key to acting was the same as the key to lying—on one level you had to believe it, to inhabit the role. Playacting-Sherlock was thinking_: she's cute, she's intelligent, she has tons of personality, she's witty, playful, and on top of all that, she's interested in me. Unbelievable!_

Meanwhile, Real-Sherlock, the one who was standing apart from all that, watching, was thinking: _I'm doing very well, aren't I? Well, of course I am. Practically any idiot can find someone willing to date them, and most of them do. I know all the signals—prolonged eye contact, mirroring body language, all of that… Hah. This 'meeting someone' is easy!_

As they wandered through the museum, he told her about the case involving the Black Lotus Tong, which John had entitled 'The Blind Banker', and in the course of telling it, about Soo Lin Yao, the museum employee who had stayed in London, hiding in the museum itself in order to protect the priceless tea ceremony utensils which were in her care. There was quite a contrast between passive, brittle Soo Lin and Aiko, and the best mental comparison he could make was that the one was like a cup of lukewarm, weak tea while the other was a flute of fresh-poured champagne, bright and on the verge of fizzing over.

"So you mean she could have escaped, but because the utensils would have crumpled from disuse, she was killed?" Aiko stared at him, incredulous. "That is—that is—_Baka_!" she exploded. "First of all, with all the conservation technology available today, a museum curator who could not engineer an exhibit with the proper humidity should be fired for gross incompetence, and second—there is _no_ handful of baked clay shaped into a pot which is worth a human life.

"I say this, and _I _had lessons in the Way of Tea where I used pieces individually worth fifty million yen! It is about cherishing the perishable and celebrating everyday life. Dying that way was stupid and wasteful! If she were not dead I should like to slap her for being such an idiot."

"Well, she_ was_ Chinese—." he began. Mentally he was calculating yen into pounds, and unless he was much mistaken, she was speaking of handling pieces worth close to four hundred thousand pounds each.

"That is no excuse!"

He laughed. "I only meant her tea tradition may have been different than the one you learned."

"That still does not justify going around acting like a character in a bad melodrama." she fumed. "The next thing, someone will quote Confucius and then there is nothing to be salvaged at all."

"How did you come to learn the tea ceremony with utensils that would pay for a house in town?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Obaachan knew the tea master, and he taught me as a favor to her. He was another Living National Treasure. In the same way, I learned flower arranging and how to play the koto, both of which I do only indifferently. I never kept up lessons."

"The koto-that's the instrument like an autoharp, isn't it?"

"Yes. I would make a perfect daughter-in-law for even the highest stickler, having all the lady-like accomplishments. Not that that kept me from getting dumped. But tell me what happened next," she changed the subject.

He did, including the Chinese opera, the arrow, and the mistaken identities leading up to the final confrontation in the tunnel. At the same time he added to what he knew of her: _family very well connected, at least in the arts world, and someone had ambitions for her to marry well, but that obviously didn't come off, probably mutual despite what she says_.

"I was right. It _is_ a bad melodrama. Is—was that person who sponsored the taxi driver involved in this as well?" she asked.

"You have a way of connecting things up which bewilders even me, and I'm used to it the other way around."

"Then I _am_ right and he _is_ involved. The person who is behind this has the heart of a small boy—," she began thoughtfully.

"In a jar on his desk?" Sherlock quipped.

She winced and smiled at the same time, "—playing with people as though they are action figures. This boy, though, is the child other mothers won't let their children play with, just as they will not leave them alone with a certain uncle. He's not simply trouble, he is unwholesome."

"I'm afraid_ I_ was that child in my neighborhood," he remarked, surprising himself. There was an unwonted bitterness in the statement which came from somewhere deeper than he had realized.

"You?" she asked, considering him. "You would take apart something dead to see what it was like inside, but he would begin while it was still alive."

"I've never done that," he admitted. "Not without the benefit of anesthesia or painless euthanasia. I prefer things to be already dead. It's much tidier that way. What exactly does 'baka' mean, by the way?"

"Stupid, idiot, jerk," she explained. "Literally it means 'someone who looks at a horse and mistakes it for a deer'.

"I should have known from the context," he said. "Where to next?"

"Not the Impressionism galleries. There are always exhibitions on the French Impressionists going on somewhere in Tokyo, and I have seen enough Monet and Degas for this lifetime and possibly my next."

Instead they went to see Van Eyck's _The Arnolfini Wedding Portrait_, where they agreed that some kind friend should have told the groom that hat made him look like a mushroom and the bride that her hairstyle should not echo her dog's ears, and after that, Titian's _The Meeting of Bacchus and Ariadne, _and after that…Eventually, they sat down in a stairwell out of the way for a rest.

"Cupcake?" she offered, opening the box. "Oh, they're not as pretty now. Most of the icing is stuck on the lid. I should not have run with them."

"That's all right," he took one. "They'll still taste good, and usually there's too much icing on cakes anyway. Happy birthday, Aiko."

"Otanjoubi omedetou, Sherlock," she replied, and they ate.

"These are good," she said, her tongue coming out to lick a final bit of raspberry jam from the corner of her mouth, "and I have just thought of something to do with the icing. Hold still." She stood up and went over to the corner where the stairs turned, with the box in her left hand.

"Why? What are you doing?" he chuckled.

"I am primarily a textile artist, but that does not mean I have not studied drawing and painting, because I have. I do a full-color work up before I begin. Silk is too costly to waste on a design that does not work. My grandmother could, but she was much more experienced. Anyhow, I have a great admiration for the methods of an artist who calls himself Banksy," she said, doing something he could not see. "That guerilla graffiti artist who leaves his work in odd places. I am emulating him right now, in fact.

"There," she stepped back, "It is not my usual medium and far from my best work, but now I too can say my work is in the National Gallery."

He stood up and came over to see she had fingerpainted his portrait on the wall with icing. "No one has ever done a portrait of me before. I'm flattered. Thank you. Here, this has to be commemorated before the cleaner comes along with a sponge. Stand next to it. That's right." He took out his mobile and snapped a couple of pictures.

"Now I must wash my hands," she said, looking at her smeary fingers. "and I wish I had a glass of milk."

"The toilets were back that way," he pointed, "and there's a café on the premises."

They did not wind up drinking milk, however. The glass of champagne each turned into sharing a bottle, and by then it was closing time and they were back out on Trafalgar Square, which wasn't that close to Baker St but wasn't that far, and his feet took him there by default or perhaps it was a slightly drunken homing instinct. Being several inches shorter and several stone lighter, not to mention female and with a correspondingly slower metabolism, Aiko was more intoxicated than he was, and seemed content to follow him through London like a duckling after a researcher.

It was rather colder now than it had been when they went into the museum, and she turned her collar up against her throat, her movements careful and slow to make up for the champagne. She was not a habitual drinker, he could tell. That was good. He was fond of her already. At least, Acting-Sherlock was, although at the moment, the champagne might be blurring where acting left off and real began.

"It smells like snow," she said, tipping her head back to look up at the clouds.

"I think you're right. The air is dry—look, your coat is too open at the neck. You're going to catch your death." By impulse, he held out the Harrods bag with the scarf he had purchased earlier. "Happy birthday."

"What?" Aiko's brow creased as she took it from his hand. "But you bought this for you."

"I can get another. Here," He took the scarf out of the tissue paper and wrapped it around her neck, tucking in the ends so she would be warmer. She looked up at him with huge eyes, darker than the darkest coffee, as he did it and before he took his hands away, he touched her cheek, reveling in the little gasp of astonishment she gave.

"Thank you," she managed after a moment. "Here, I bought this for me, but …here. You should have it." She drew a little box out of her purse and pressed it into his hand.

Nestled in cotton was a small ball of something cold and hard. Holding it in the light so he could see it better, he turned it over in his fingers. "It's labradorite," she said. "I thought it looked like a little world. So for your birthday, I'm giving it to you."

"I see," he said, for he did. It was darkly iridescent, with white patches like polar caps and orange-brown shapes which could be continents against a blue-green ground that changed shades as the light hit it. "Thank you. I will treasure it. Aiko, I've never enjoyed my birthday as much as this before. Not even when I was small. I'd very much like to see you again. Can I? I mean, can I call you?"

Acting-Sherlock meant it. Real-Sherlock was thinking: _yes, this is credible, Moriarty will believe it, he'll go after her and I'll have time to work out how to shield John and Mrs. Hudson_.

She withdrew a step, both literally and figuratively. "I—don't have a phone for here yet. I got rid of the other one when I left Japan."

"Then I'll give you my number, and you can call me when you get one," he offered.

"I—I don't know. I—there was someone I was seeing, and I liked him. I really liked him very much, but last year—he said he was sick of looking at my face with my stupid duck mouth, and I had too much family drama, and I contradicted him all the time and I hit him too hard." Suddenly she drew back and punched him. "I ask you, is that too hard?"

He had not been expecting it, Aiko hadn't telegraphed it, and as a result he doubled up around it. "Uh—." The breath wouldn't come for a moment. "Yes, a little."

"There. I'm too strong and too rough, and I act crazy. You shouldn't get mixed up with me."

"I don't think there's anything wrong with how you act, and if you think you have family drama, we should compare notes sometime. Nor is there anything stupid about your mouth. It's adorable. So are you. There's nothing wrong with being strong, although I _would_ appreciate it if you pulled your punches a little. I don't mind being contradicted, either, as long as there's an interesting debate in it. I'd like to see you again."

"I don't know," she repeated, bending over to pick up a chunk of broken brick from the ground. Straightening up, she wound up like a pitcher and let fly. The sound of glass shattering cut the relative quiet. It was the heart of London, and there was always going to be some traffic.

"I—." He frowned, squinting ahead. "I believe that was my building. I believe that was my _window_!"

"There! You see? I was not even trying, and I cause trouble! Don't get involved with me!"

"I'm sorry, but I think it's too late." He had a stub of pencil in his pocket, and now Sherlock scrawled his number on the back of a receipt. "Here. I won't pressure you any more tonight, but at least think about it."

She looked at the paper as if it would bite. "I won't call." The snow had started to come down around them in great, fat, feathery flakes.

"Then I'll come and find you."

"Maybe I'll call," she conceded, and took it. "Now I want you to stay there. And close your eyes until you count a thousand. Don't watch me going."

"All right. I won't." He obediently closed his eyes, but he couldn't help but smile.

"I can see you smiling!" she called. He could have told her exactly how many feet away she was, but he didn't. "Don't watch me!"

"I won't." Silence. Traffic noises. Where had she gone? He opened his eyes. For a moment, some odd optical effect made it look as though there were a tunnel through the falling snow, but Aiko was gone.

He finished his story, looked to John and Mrs. Hudson for their reaction. Both had slightly shocked expressions on their faces.

"Well, you're not bringing her around here until you tidy this place up a bit," Mrs. Hudson said, after a moment. "Also, I think if get a dehumidifier for the basement flat, it'll be much more livable and she can do her dyeing and things in the tub down there, it's already stained."

"Isn't that getting a bit ahead of things, Mrs. H?" he asked.

"Not knowing you, it isn't. You decided John was going to be your flatmate, and he moved in the next day. Now you've decided on this girl. I don't suppose it'll take much longer to convince her."

John had reached for his laptop. "What was the name of the place you ate last night?" he asked.

Sherlock told him, adding "Why?"

John was already dialing the number, and held up a finger for silence. "Hello? Yes. A friend of mine and I ate at your restaurant last night, and I'm afraid there was a misunderstanding. It's a long story, but we left without paying, and I wanted to fix things. I'm sure someone will remember us. I'm tall with dark curly hair, and she's Japanese, quite pretty. She had on a black coat and a green—Oh, you do? You are? She did? Yes, you're right. It was, very. Very good indeed. Thank you. Thank you very much."

He ended the call with an ear-to-ear grin on his face.

"What does that mean?" Sherlock asked.

"She paid in full, in cash, and tipped the waiter an extra twenty pounds to chase you two as far as the corner."

"She did what?" Aiko was full of surprises.

"She said she wanted to play a joke on you," John reached for the laptop again and began writing.

"What about my painkillers?" he pleaded.

"Oh, right." His friend put the computer aside and went to fetch—ibuprofen.

"What is this?" Sherlock whined.

"It's stronger than aspirin—and you forgot about acting hungover half an a hour ago."

* * *

><p>From the blog of John H. Watson: So if you happen to know an Aiko Murasaki who fits her description, please urge her to give Sherlock a call. If she didn't run out on the restaurant bill, I sincerely doubt she shoplifts, either. He is wrong sometimes, after all. As far as her penchant for petty vandalism goes—well, icing washes off easily enough and if she can keep to, say, breaking one window a week, I think it'll be all right.<p>

Anyone who can spend several hours in close contact with him and only give into the impulse to hit him once is a person I want to meet. Besides, we could use another person on Sherlock Watch around here. It would be a break for Mrs. Hudson and me. I'll post her picture up here when I can get hold of it.


	4. Mr Miike

Never short off the mark, Mycroft had 'Anthea' (her name of the moment) bring the young woman to him for a friendly chat as soon as she and Sherlock parted ways for the evening, just as he had Anthea bring Dr. Watson. However…John Watson's mother had never instilled in _him_ the fear of being abducted, raped and murdered by someone in a strange car. _He_ had gone quietly.

When the limousine door opened, Mycroft beheld his assistant with the girl she had been sent to collect. Anthea was holding the girl face down on the seat, both of the girl's hands pinned behind her back. The girl was weeping into the upholstery in a combination of terror and rage. His assistant, who was normally flawlessly turned out, cool and composed, had a torn collar, her eye makeup was smudged until she resembled a panda, and she had a swelling, discolored upper lip as well. Her hair stuck out in angry snarls which matched the expression on her face.

"If I hadn't had the Special Forces training I could never have got her here," she told her boss, shifting her grip and letting go of the girl's hands.

"Oh, dear," Mycroft murmured, and with that, the captive raised her head.

"Mr. Miike?" she asked, surprise and incredulity in her voice and all over her face.

"Aiko!" He was no less surprised than she, in all truth.

"You never said it was Mr. Miike who wished to see me!" she shrugged off Anthea, who was also giving Mycroft a furious look. "You might ask at any time of the day or night and I would gladly go to see him. There is no need to send people in cars to abduct me without warning or identification."

"I apologize most profoundly and sincerely," Mycroft replied. "Anthea, please apologize as well. That will be all, then, until Miss—until Miss Aiko and I have finished talking."

"I'm very sorry," Anthea said dutifully, although the look she gave her superior was not apologetic.

Aiko nodded in acknowledgement as she sat up and straightened her clothing.

"In all truth, I didn't recognize you. It must be ten years since I last saw you in person," Mycroft said as he handed her up out of the car and over to the folding chair. "You were several inches shorter, went around dressed like Alice In Wonderland, and had dyed your hair pale rose with lavender ends." The frills and lace had not been a good look for her, and she had been at a very awkward stage as well.

She smiled as she took a seat. "I was fourteen then and I did not know any better."

"And now you are—twenty-five," he recalled. "Happy birthday." He had noted once that Aiko shared a birthday with his only brother, which made remembering very easy.

"Thank you. You have heard that Isojiro passed away last year?" she asked.

"Yes. I am very sorry for your loss," he took refuge in that most conventional of phrases. "How is your family taking it?"

"It was…not unexpected. Indeed, that my brother should have lived to see thirty was remarkable. We have taken it as well as you might imagine. Without him—we are still adjusting to our lives after him."

Her cultural reticence fought her innately open nature and won, at least for the moment. Having known her since she was five, before she spoke English, (the source of her nickname for him, Mr. Miike), he recalled the child she had been, sunny, happy and oblivious to stressors around her.

"So what brings you to London? Ah—are you here on your own?"

"Yes, I am. Partly it was time for me to grow up and leave the nest, as they say—my mother and I were at odds with each other, and it is more comfortable to have a continent between us at the moment. More personally, though—I became a textile artist, I don't suppose you know that." She looked at him questioningly.

"No, but I'm not at all surprised. I remember you and your grandmother working at an embroidery frame together."

She smiled at that, but sadly, and then her face clouded up. "I completed a four panel wall hanging depicting the seasons as my graduation piece. I worked on it for over a year, using every technique I ever learned, and when it was done I wanted to set fire to it. Not because it was not good, not because it was not beautiful—it won awards, and the university hung it in the entry hall, it's still on display there—I don't know. I have not yet found my voice, artistically, and it is very frustrating.

"But today," She sat up, brightening. "Today I told myself, 'It is my birthday, and today I shall not mourn. I will go out today and have fun. I will have an adventure. And I did! I might even have made a friend."

"Male or female?," he asked, although he knew the answer. "I'm _quite_ sure you can't mean my assistant."

"I will apologize to her," Aiko said, "but my possible friend is a man. Did you ever meet someone and it was as if you had known them for many years from the very start, before you even knew each others' names?"

"I can't say that I have," he replied.

"Neither had I before today. Of course I am not in the way of making many friends. I hardly had a school year which was not interrupted, so I did not make the sorts of lasting friendships one is supposed to. But we went about part of London together, and it was remarkably comfortable being with him. His voice alone...Although I did choke up when he asked for my phone number… He made me see the city differently."

Clearly Aiko had not put it together that Sherlock was his brother, not as yet. She knew Mycroft's last name—but—hmm, she never used it. He had been "Mr. Miike" to her from the start. Sherlock might not have told her his last name, for that matter, and it was possible that for all she knew, 'Holmes' was as common a name in England as 'Ueda' was in Japan. Tell her? Or not tell her? She would probably be delighted, but…what was Sherlock up to?

"I hope that it works out," he restricted himself to saying, "but what are you going to do in London? Has your family made you an allowance to live on, or do you have a job?"

"I have some money from my grandmother," she said, "which I am living on at the moment. I have no formal job, but there are many informal teaching opportunities in London. I can teach personal enrichment courses in several aspects of Japanese culture, such as calligraphy, making sushi at home, the tea ceremony, painting, and textile arts of course. I have contacted several places which coordinate such classes, and I will be paid per student. There is already some interest, and my first class will be on the twentieth. It will not be full time or as structured as teaching for credit, so I will have time to pursue my own art."

"Hmm. And if that doesn't work?"

"If I cannot become self-supporting by the time the money runs out, then I will return to Japan and go on miai until I find one who isn't too much of a loser."

"I'm afraid I'm not familiar with that term," he frowned.

"It is rather like a blind date except with a serious intent to marry on both sides. The men who resort to them, or whose families set them up, are invariably losers." She looked downcast at the prospect.

"Then I suggest not failing here," he smiled. "Is that something you promised your parents?"

"It's a punitive measure I have placed on myself as there is nothing I dread more. It does not help that I am still staying in a hotel, but I have not yet found anywhere else I can envision staying. I have never lived alone in my life."

"Well, as an old friend of the family, if I may claim that status, I may be able to be of some assistance. If you could give me your phone number…?"

"I can't. I have no phone for here yet," Another smile, shy this time. "You are the second man to ask me for my number today. It must be my perfume; I have never had so much attention."

"I suspect you are not frequenting the right places, or should I say, the wrong ones. Not that I mean to suggest you should…I'll give you mine, and I will expect you to call. Since it seems you have had a full day today, I will let you go. Good night, Aiko."

"Good night, Mr. Miike," she said, standing up and smoothing down her skirt. On her way back to the car, she paused, her brow creasing. "But why was it you wished to speak to me before you knew who I was?"

He was not about to reveal that now, not until he had a chance to consider matters carefully. "There was a report of a young woman of your description engaged in suspicious behavior."

"Oh. But I _did _pay for dinner. That was only a joke I played on my companion, and I don't see how something so minor would ever come to your attention. Anyhow, if I _were_ to do something truly suspicious, no one would ever catch me at it or suspect me afterward." There, a naughty-innocent smile.

"I believe you." She was winsome, true, and if she were more accurately described as loveable rather than beautiful, her warmth made up for it. If it were any man but Sherlock, he would not wonder for a moment at his motivation.

As the limousine drove away, he drew the kanji for her name in the grit on the floor with the ferrule of his umbrella. The first time he had ever met her, at the age of five, he had been twenty-four, as green and raw as she was now. Her grandmother was guiding her hand to make a row of red stitches against a white cloth, like blood on snow. In the next room, her parents were having a tremendous row (of the argumentative kind rather than the needle and thread variety) with a team of doctors, and the man who then had the position he had now, over whether she was still too small to harvest for bone marrow.

It was not unusual for Japanese couples to travel to another country for certain fertility treatments when they ran up against the laws in their own country, but it was quite another to do…what her parents had done. They had wanted, first of all, a cure for their existing son, failing that, another son, only healthy. When that was found to be impossible owing to the defect in the father's Y chromosome, they demanded and paid for as perfect a tissue match for their son as could be created in the Baskerville Research Facility. The fact that this living organ bank came in the form of a healthy daughter…

Now that their son Isojiro was dead, had they any use for Aiko anymore? Had they ever learned to love her? Her grandmother had, at least. But then her grandmother had not known, and it was clear Aiko herself was ignorant. Ignorance, they always said, was bliss.

If Sherlock _had_ taken to her as she obviously had taken to him—that could be a tremendous positive. Pinocchio at last grows up and becomes a real boy? Unlikely. But possible. Look at how his brother had taken to Dr. Watson. Oh. Of course...

Aiko and Sherlock had met one afternoon when his brother had come to his office to whinge about that drowning where the boy's shoes had gone missing. The police were not taking him at all seriously, he complained, and Mycroft, whose superior was once again in negotiations with Aiko's father, had sent him outdoors, where there was a little park with a swingset.

Aiko, her grandmother and Isojiro, for once allowed out by the doctors, were there. Aiko had greeted Sherlock by head-butting him in the stomach and then fastened onto him like a limpet for the rest of the afternoon. Some things, it seemed, did not change. She had been...seven, Sherlock seventeen.

At seventeen Sherlock had been at his worst, uncoordinated, with an Adam's apple like a knee in his neck, spotted with acne. But his voice had already changed to that enviable baritone. A chance meeting, never repeated, with a random adult (or near adult), was not likely to stick in the mind of a seven yeard old, but on some level she remembered his brother's voice.

If Sherlock recalled that day, he would remember a small child with no front teeth. In eighteen years, Aiko had not only grown up but filled out.

These thoughts and others like them occupied him until Anthea came back to collect him.

"I've had a dekko round her records," Anthea commented vulgarly, "Nothing against her here, and I can't tell about her native land, but she was arrested twice in America, once for disorderly conduct, dismissed with a warning from the judge, and once for aggravated assault. She spent the night in jail, but charges were dropped on the grounds that it was self-defense. Someone tried to mug her, she fought back and won. I am not surprised in the least." She had repaired her make-up and hair, tucked in the torn collar.

"I can confirm I am unsurprised as well." Mycroft said, but went no further. "Have a new mobile sent to her at her hotel first thing in the morning. Top of the line, set up in her name, and unlimited everything for a year. No, make that two. With my card, and belated birthday greetings." He smiled.

Whatever was going on with Sherlock, he planned to enjoy observing it.


	5. The Unsafe Room

A/N: This story arc is based very loosely on Doyle's story _The Adventure of the Norwood Builder_.

8th January—John H. Watson's Blog: 2:38PM

Since a couple of people have asked, there is nothing yet on the Aiko front, but it's only been thirty-six hours or so since they last met. That's a little soon to say she simply tossed his number, I think. Or is it? I don't know what the rules are in Japan or if women do these things differently. Personally, if I get a woman's number I let at least twenty-four hours go by before calling her, but not more than forty-eight. You don't want to seem either desperate or disinterested. Hang on, Sherlock's yelling his head off about a case.

8th January, 7:57pm

It's five hours since I posted that last bit and while I'm sure you've heard about the Norwood Safe Room Murder at this point, I can give you the inside advantage. These are the facts: About eighteen months ago, Hector MacFarlane, a university student not quite twenty years old at the time, launched a social network site that was meant to be the UK's answer to Facebook, Craigslist, Twitter and everything else you can think of. He called it 'UnionJackedUp', and at first it went brilliantly, attracting the under-twenty-five set, not to mention advertisers.

However, just as it got its millionth subscriber, there was a server crash so terrible it made the Titanic look like a child playing in the bath with a toy boat and a sponge. Not to worry, MacFarlane said, it was nothing that couldn't be fixed if he could only find a few investors. Dazzled by the thought of success on the scale of those three aforementioned sites, he got a few, and then a few more, as the site went back on and seemed, at first, to be living up to his ambitions. His investors were happy with the dividends, and that attracted more. Yet the nature of the site changed, because his main investor was magazine publisher Jonas Oldacre, and Oldacre's advertising dominated. Not liking the hard sell, many users left.

Undaunted, MacFarlane used his new-found wealth to buy a house in the Norwood area, a detached late Victorian in need of modern improvement, and acquired a fashion model girlfriend who wasn't in need of any improvements. He set about pouring more money into both, including turning the butler's room and adjacent silver storeroom into a safe room or panic room. Bulletproof, fireproof, with its own lavatory, everything needed to wait out a siege or a riot. Perhaps he knew even then that when people found out what he was really up to, they would be out for his blood.

UnionJackedUp was a sham, a pyramid scheme where the newest investors' money went to pay off the original investors' dividends, and then the file sharing aspect was revealed to be not simply a matter of copyright violations, but a front for a pornography ring that passed around stuff I can't even write about here as it's a public page. There were several million pounds completely unaccounted for, and the only person who knew where they might have gone was MacFarlane.

All this came out over the last three days, and as the authorities were putting together search and arrest warrants, MacFarlane went into his safe room, taking with him a couple of factory sealed cases of his favorite foods, and bolted himself in. Whoever did that bit of work had known his stuff; it was more solid than a bank vault and harder to get into. The police were at a loss; he offered no violence, had no weapons, held no hostage other than himself, yet despite his desperate situation, there was no reason to believe he would or could harm himself. He took his mobile phone, which continued to function, and there was never a time that he was out of contact with the outside world except by his own choice.

It was a standoff of a kind they had never seen before. They gathered up friends and family members to try and reason with him, brought in psychologists, hostage negotiators, all to no avail.

Then MacFarlane died. While in the midst of a conversation with the police, he suddenly complained of gastrointestinal pain, and ran into his lavatory. The sounds he made convinced them he was in genuine and terrible distress, and unable to get to the door and unbolt it. They redoubled their efforts to get in, which took them several more hours and certainly cost him his life.

Finding him dead upon the loo floor, Lestrade called Sherlock. After three days in a room he locked from the inside, Hector MacFarlane had ingested poison and died. There were no traces of any product tampering, no pills, powders, nothing to show how it had gotten into the room, let alone the man. That is the sort of case Sherlock lives for, so he rousted me out and we were off.

"A locked room mystery," I said, looking out the window of the taxi. "I thought that sort of thing went out with Agatha Christie."

"The classics never go out of style, John. I'm surprised Anderson got it straight off." His phone rang and he pulled it from his pocket. "Hello, I don't know this number. Hello?" he asked the person on the other end, and smiled. "Aiko! Evidently. Excellent. I'm glad you called. Listen, what are you doing right now?"

"You're not seriously—you're not going to ask her along to this, are you?" I asked, guessing.

"Why not?" he put his hand over the phone. "It might impress her. Jealousy doesn't become you, you know."

"I'm not jealous, I'm concerned. Did you not hear the list of symptoms? Bloody diarrhea, vomiting—she's going to dump you before you ever get together." I predicted.

"In that case, better that it happen now before anyone gets attached. What?" he said to the girl on the other end. "That was John, my flatmate and blogger. We're on our way to a crime scene, and it promises to be a fun one. Are you up for it? Splendid. Where are you? That's only a couple of blocks off our route."

He gave the cabbie an address.

"They're never going to let her anywhere near the body," I said. "The only reason they let me in with you is that I'm a medical professional. What excuse are you going to give them for her being there?"

"She's an artist. She has an artist's eye. She's there to draw the scene."

"There are such things as cameras now, you know. You may have heard of them—look, you even have one on your phone," I pointed out sarcastically.

"That's the problem. Cameras record everything. They don't discriminate the important from the rubbish."

About five minutes later we pulled up in front of a café where a young woman was waiting at the curb, an insulated cup in one hand and an artist's sketch case under her arm. Sherlock got out to give her the center seat, and she slid in.

"I am Aiko Murasaki, and how do you do?" she asked me cheerfully. She was as cute in person as in the picture, and I can tell you that the word that best describes her is 'gamine'. She must have liked Sherlock's scarf, because she had on a slouchy knit hat that matched it.

I admit I was a little taken aback at how young she seemed; Sherlock had said she had just had a birthday, but he hadn't said how old she was. The prospect of the two of them getting together (and the possibility of her taking on any responsibility for him, thus freeing me up a little) became much more remote in my mind. On the other hand, that might put them on the same level in terms of maturity, so I was not about to abandon hope. She had intelligent eyes, and that was worth something.

"I'm doing very well, thank you. I'm John. John Watson, MD. I'm very glad we've met, given what I've heard about you. Listen, I don't know what impression Sherlock may have given you, but…"

I explained about what we were likely to find at the crime scene, but Sherlock interrupted. "May I see your phone?"

"Don't let him," I cautioned her as she was about to pull it out of her case. "He only wants a closer look into your life. Make him work for it."  
>"It's a brand new phone, what do you think I'm going to learn?" he protested.<p>

"Knowing you, everything."

She dimpled. "It is all right." She handed it over to him as I shook my head.

He began to examine it, but his face fell. "You set the default language to Japanese. I can't even read the numbers."

"Of course I did," she said. "John, I thank you for your concern but during my brother's final illness I became accustomed to all kinds of bodily messes and I think I will be all right. Also I have a tin of very strong mints with me and if need be they will sear any other smell out of my nose."

"High end but not ostentatious, brand new, Japanese manufacture, of course. No rhinestones, extreme colors, or Hello Kitty charms attached, all to be expected considering who it belongs to, but otherwise nothing. Here it is back," Sherlock said, tossing her mobile in her lap. "Since your phone is indecipherable, may I see your sketch book?"

"Yes, you may." She swapped the phone for the sketch case, which he unzipped, paging through until he came to a drawing of a tree.

"Is this the one you were working on in the café?" he asked.

"Yes, it is."

He held the book out, pointing to a branch. "What makes this limb so important? Why so much detail here?"

I got a good look at it; for all the simplicity of line, the limb in question was almost animal or even human in its energy, like watching a person uncurl and stretch out an arm. Her claim to being an artist was no pose, but then I expected she would be the genuine article.

"That limb is the one that's still striving," she explained. "This tree is old, and it's dying because there's a new building blocking the sun, except for this one branch which still gets some light. See how it's grown like it's reaching out for help?"

"I do. _You are_ good. When we get in there, make sketches, even just quick, simple ones, of whatever strikes you as important." he told her.

We pulled up in front of the gloomy pile of bricks in which Hector MacFarlane had seen his schemes fall apart around and on top of him. A police officer directed us around to the back, the better to avoid the media.

Lestrade met us there. "Who's this and why is she here?" he asked curtly, surveying the addition to our group as he led us to the mews entrance around the corner.

"Aiko Murasaki. She's an artist." Sherlock explained. "She's going to take some sketches of the scene."

"How do you do?" she asked, beaming up at Lestrade. Friendliness and willingness to be cooperative practically poured off her. (Mentally I was counting the minutes until Sherlock reduced her to tears and she fled.)

"Ah, fine, thank you. What do you need a crime scene sketch artist for?" the Inspector asked Sherlock, reasonably enough.

"Because I'm trying to impress her in a be-my-girlfriend way," Sherlock drawled, sounding bored.

"If you don't want to tell me you can just say so," Lestrade replied. "There's no need to go taking the piss out of me."

"Who's to say I don't mean it?" Sherlock replied. "Tell me what you have so far…"

"This is a very _Western_ house," Aiko said to me as we went down the small flight of stairs into the basement, doing her best not to comment on the exchange between Sherlock and Lestrade. "How old do you suppose it is?"

I looked around at what had been the kitchen, now gutted out and pulled apart in preparation for the refitting. There were capped off pipes sticking out of the floor, wires that attached to nothing, and plaster dust everywhere. "Oh, about a hundred and twenty, hundred-fifty years old, I would say." I asked, appreciating her effort. "Why do you say 'very Western'?"

"It is very heavy and permanent," she answered. "When you build a private residence in Japan, you don't put anything over your head that you would not want coming down on it in case of an earthquake, and you build with the likelihood that if the land is worth anything at all, you will have to sell half of it when the family head dies to cover the inheritance taxes.

"Houses are thus built to last for one generation, twenty or thirty years. In that way you avoid all of the troublesome business of replacing aging pipes and inadequate wiring." She gestured at the kitchen as we left it behind and headed up the stairs. "Also it spurs architects to greater creativity when they have less, rather than more, to work with."

Emerging into the ground-floor hall, I looked around. It was like being inside an inside-out wedding cake, if you can imagine that; one of those all-white cakes with icing swags and blobby roses threatening to slither off from the heat. This cake was definitely past its prime, what with the water stains on the ceiling. It was a strong argument for adopting the Japanese approach to home building.

"In here," Lestrade said, waving us into the safe room. A terrible fecal odor hit me in the nose just then, and I saw Aiko shake a few mints into her hand as she swallowed convulsively.

No, she wasn't going to last the hour, let alone a day. Sherlock, on the other hand, was as in his element as he ever gets.

* * *

><p>TBC… Incidentally, word is that the American CBS version of Sherlock has been cast and is filming. Jonny Lee Miller, who alternated playing Frankenstein and Frankenstein's Monster with Benedict on stage last year, is playing Holmes as a recovering addict—(he also played heroin addict Sickboy in Trainspotting) And get this—<em>Lucy Liu<em> is playing Dr. JOAN Watson, who is helping him with his recovery.

I'll give it a shot, but frankly I'd rather have more Benedict and Martin.

By the way—reviews are the only pay fic writers get. Please let me know what you think—it keeps me going.


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